General Knowledge No. 2 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Flute

The study, carried out by the Gallup polling organization, found the piano to be the choice of 33% of music students, while 18% preferred the guitar and 6% chose the flute. The list of also-rans included the drums (5%), clarinet (5%), trumpet (4%), saxophone (4%), organ (3%) and violin (3%).

Answer: Flotsam and jetsam

All three words are legal terms for goods lost (or jettisoned) at sea. Goods found floating are flotsam, while those that sink are either lagan or jetsam depending on whether they have or have not been marked with a buoy to indicate ownership.

Answer: Cuckoo

There are two species of road runner, both native to Central America. They are poor flyers, but - as the name suggests - good runners, attaining sprint speeds of up to 25 kph (15 mph). Although they are cuckoos, road runners do not lay eggs in other birds' nests.

Answer: The cordwainer

The cordwainer derived his name from Cordova, in Spain, a source of fine shoe leather. The broderer was an embroiderer; the farrier shod horses; and the loriner (also lorimer) made bits for horses, and other metal pieces for their harness.

Answer: Famous classical violinists

Russians Mischa Elman (1891-1967) and Nathan Milstein (1904-1992), and Lithuanian Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987) were all in the first rank of violin soloists. The name of Heifetz in particular was almost synonymous with virtuoso violin playing.

Answer: Most colors can be represented as combinations of red, green and blue

The fact that most colors can be created by adding red, green and blue light in various mixtures was first applied to color photography. Computer monitors use the same principle in representing virtually any color by mixing 256 levels (typically) of each of the three primaries.

Answer: Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras believed that there is an infinite number of elements, and that all things include the essence of all other things. This was in contrast to Anaximander, who a century earlier had concluded that there was only one indeterminate primordial substance from which all things are derived. Anaximander is believed to have been the first person to attempt mapping the entire world, which he thought of as a stubby cylinder. Anaximenes of Miletus, a contemporary of Anaximander, had taught that all things ultimately consisted of air at various densities. Anaximenes of Lampsacus (c.380-320 B.C.) was a writer and historian who accompanied Alexander the Great on his Persian campaigns.

Answer: The servant of Don Quixote

Sancho was the servant or squire of Don Quixote in the immortal Spanish novel Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes. Sancho is practical and level-headed - the opposite of his master.

Answer: Helen of Troy

Helen was the wife of Menelaus, the brother of King Agamemnon of Mycenae. She eloped with the Trojan prince Paris around 1200 BC. Agamemnon and an alliance of Greek kings sailed to Troy, a walled city in Asia Minor also known as Ilium, and thus began the decade-long siege called the Trojan War.

The famous "thousand ships" line is from Christopher Marlowe's play Faustus: Was this the face that launched a thousand ships? And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

Answer: The wife of William Shakespeare

Anne Hathaway was eight years older than Shakespeare, whom she married in 1582 when he was just 18. Although they had three children together, the couple spent most of their married life apart, she remaining at home in Stratford while her husband occupied himself with pursuing a theatrical career in London and becoming the greatest playwright in history.